West Ham United might not have played with the same fluency as earlier in the season in recent Premier League matches, but they have still added Premier League points to their total.
That was the message reiterated by Pablo Fornals after Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Leicester City at King Power Stadium, a match which both sides felt they might have won, but one ultimately squared by Craig Dawson’s last-gasp header from a corner kick.
As per Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Watford at London Stadium, the Irons certainly had their moments and led through the inspirational Jarrod Bowen.
But whereas earlier in the week that lead was seen out for three points, a Leicester comeback either side of half-time meant that Dawson’s late strike was worth just the one in Leicester.
It was a point which took West Ham to 41 for the season, now 24 - or eight wins - behind the Club-record tally set last season, with 13 games still left to play.
“The first half I think we deserved to win, but the second half was honestly for them,” Fornals admitted. “At least we gained one point from a set piece in the last moment.
“With how the game was, I think it was a big point for us. We are a top team. Top teams sometimes don’t play as well as people expect, but they get points, and that’s what we did.
“For us, getting points week in, week out is massive. We just want to keep adding points to our total and try to finish with as many points as we can at the end.”
No other Premier League side has scored more goals from corner kicks than West Ham’s 25 since the start of 2020 and return of manager David Moyes.
When aligned with Leicester’s poor record defending such instances this season – Dawson’s goal was their 14th set-piece concession this campaign alone – the statistics pointed to such an avenue being potentially profitable.
“We are a strong team from set pieces,” Fornals said of the centre-back’s goal.
“Jarrod is one of the best takers in the league, one hundred per cent, and we also have big targets to hit.
“We didn’t have a lot of set pieces, but we are dangerous from them. They tried to make changes to finish the game – they put on another centre-back at the end – but they didn’t defend the last set piece well.
“We are a strong team at set pieces, defending and attacking. It’s what we’ve been doing for a long time.”
In the end, Fornals reasoned that a 2-2 draw – and another point on the board which keeps the Irons fourth in the Premier League table – was a fair reflection on proceedings at the King Power.
“Obviously Leicester were playing at home with their crowd,” the Spaniard explained.
“Leicester are used to fighting for European spots as well, like us, so you can never expect a team like them to be bad.
“They have really good players, a really good coach and when they are good, this stadium is tough to play at. We didn’t come here thinking ‘Leicester are dead’ because they never are.
“They are not in the best moment in the league probably, but fans don’t need too much to support their team and they did that. It was a great atmosphere.
“After how the second half was, it’s a fair result for us.”